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Monday, August 16, 2010

In life or business there are many times, when we are focused on the future growth. We come up with great plans, course of action to achieve the desired goals. But if in such planning we overlook to protect what we already have, then it is something like getting the desired interest rate but losing the principal itself!

So, what we already have, we should protect, secure. Our growth should not be at the expense of our current core values and competencies. We should safeguard it from our blindingly excited future plans!

In today's fast track world, we see many young people working overtime, exerting themselves, eating fast food, sleeping at weird hours, sitting long hours in sedentary but high paying jobs? And hence the cases of health issues are rising - back problems, heart problems, cholesterol and blood pressure, increasingly become fatal at younger and younger ages with time.

In the rush to make money faster, we do two people's job, and end up hurting our own health, peace, family time and the chance to smell the roses. If you look at the big picture, we are losing out a lot in the mad rush to quick gains. Our aspirations have grown bigger, and we keep rationalizing it that once a certain amount is made we will relax, but that usually doesn't happen till a major health issue literally puts brakes on our life.

Or take the case of the man who worked so hard to be able to give his wife a good life, he ended up spending so little time with her, that she left him and married someone else. So, true he got the money he wanted to provide for his wife a lifestyle he thought she wanted, but now he doesn't even have the wife.

Or to some degree even the Gift of the Magi story fits this situation. Both the husband and wife sacrifice their prized possession to get a gift for the other, but now they had the gift for the other, but the gifts couldn't be used. She had sold her hair to get him a chain for his pocket watch, he had sold his pocket watch to get her a comb! They surely got the gift, but lost the original!

Here is a small nyAyaH, maxim that captures a wonderful essence of common or business life.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Pun is a very powerful tool used in Sanskrit just because the language kind of lends itself to it, with multiple meanings of words and different breaking points for sandhi (liaison) and samAsa (compounding) and different ways of compounding (which preposition is omitted).

So much stress is laid on good karma (कर्म), for karma (कर्म) alone decides our future. Even old karma (कर्म) gets to play the role and daiva (दैव) or destiny being the totally unknown factor beyond our current comprehension.

To understand दैव we should take a simple example. Few hundred years back people may not have known why someone died of 'consumption', what today we call tuberculosis. Then someone would have said, "Well it is your daiva (दैव)". Today, we know and we can say, "Well you must have done some karma (कर्म) to be exposed to the bacteria, and then some karma (कर्म) to not seek cure, hence the results." If we change the karma (कर्म) of laziness or unawareness to that of going for treatment, we change our own future and become cured of this ailment.

So, we are told to do good karma (कर्म), only then anything good will happen to the society, to us, our next generation and the environment and to the whole unknown universe, kind of like the butterfly effect! :)

But the poet takes a jab at those who don't do any good karma (कर्म) when they were able to, and simply get old as a parasite. He says that old age even does good to them, gives them good credit points by making them yama (यम) god of death, viShNu (विष्णु), chandra (चन्द्र) moon, and shiva (शिव), that too, all at the same time! What more good karma (कर्म) can one do to be so fortunate to be all four in one go!

How does old age turn even a selfish person into all these great divine powers?

yama (यम) has in his hands, a stick, club - the stick of rounding up the dead, if you may and take them for auditing to decide where they go.
The old man too has a stick in his hand!

hari (हरि), or viShNu (विष्णु) has the mace, which is called gadA (गदा), so viShNu is called sagadam (सगदम्)- one with the mace. The word mugadara (मुगदर), a large club for gym training used even today by wrestlers also comes from the same word.
The old man has disease, or gada (गदः), so he is also sagadam (सगदम्). The root for both words is though 'gad' (गद्) (rhymes with bug).

The [crescent] moon is crooked.
The old person, with a hunchback or a hip problem or some other issue, is also crooked.

shiva (शिव) is called virUpa-akSha (विरूप-अक्ष) i.e. one with special eyes (what with three eyes instead of normal two!).
The old person too has 'special' i.e. distorted eyes, and weak eyesight etc.

Of course, all of these are said in satire for the selfish (that at least old age will make him 'great'), and as terms of endearment to shiva and moon.

Like yamarAja [god of death] holding a stick in hand (walking stick in old age),
Like hari [viShNu] with mace (gada = disease, for old age),
Like [crescent] moon that is crooked (crooked body posture for old age),
And like shiva with special eyes (shiva with three eyes, old age with 'special'/distorted eyes),
Old age does good (puNyam) even of the [selfish] non-good-doer (akRitam)
[by making him yama, viShNu, moon, shiva simultaneously].

shashA~Nkam = moon
shasha = rabbit, hare
a~Nka = mark (also marks as in test paper!)
so moon is one with the rabbit mark. western folklore sees a spinster at a spinning wheel, eastern tales see a rabbit

iva = like
vakram = crooked, bent

shivam = shiva the benefactor
iva = like
cha = and

virUpAkSham = distorted or 'special' eyes
virUpa = vi-rUpa = distorted or special form
rUpa = form and vi- prefix makes it special, you can take it in good or sarcastic way.
so, "He is so 'special'!" is sarcastic, and "He is so special!" may be a compliment.

Rare Buddhist relics on view - "The Sanskrit manuscripts are from a cache of Buddhist relics found during the Otani expedition in China’s then Xinjiang province in early 20th century. These are now a part of the Lushun Museum Collection in China. The other documents have been sourced from the Cambridge University Library, Columbia University Press, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, and the National Archives of Nepal. The facsimiles and panels have been made by the Institute of Oriental Philosophy in Japan." PS: the sad part is, most of the manuscripts were outside india.

A renowned scholar, but down to earthCHENNAI: Polite, kind and genteel in manners, Dr Calumbur Sivaramamurti was more of a friend and a resourceful companion to his two children. Sundararamamurti (68), the elder son of the art icon, says his father never behaved like a world renowned scholar. “He was an affectionate father, simple and down to earth. I did not understand till his death that he was a great mahapurusha venerated the world over,” he shrugs.

‘God is not an extra-cosmic personality’"There is a Sanskrit saying, ‘Tatwa masi’ (God is a spirit within us).”PS: comedy of errors - sort of - the dangers of writing sanskrit words in roman script with bad compounding (sandhi) points can be hilarious! "tatwa masi" instead of "tattwam asi" changes "that you are" to "essence/gist/core/material ink" !

'Spiritual' Innovation"It was then that I realised that they were actually sharing the task of conducting the ritual. They were taking turns guiding people through them. The first person started off with new batches, while the second person did the middle portion and the third completed the ritual.
Brilliant!
They must have not had the time to memorise the entire set of shlokas and understandably so. But to their credit, they overcame the hurdle by slicing the overall work into smaller chunks that they shared. Coupled with this, their adeptness at getting the timing 'right' was spot on."

PS: an interesting read on necessity is the mother of invention or innovation :)

Me Talk Sanskrit One DayPS: i am not sure if i should smile or cry reading this article. it was funny, except that it also shows that how sanskrit, can be brutalized for fun, half knowledge can give rise to crude humor, and maybe lack of proper teaching can cause more pain than joy! but you might enjoy it! if i was not a sanskrit lover, i would have only laughed it off :)

"Sanskrit letters are far less recognizable, in shape, than popular alphabets, like Hebrew, Arabic, or Cyrillic, which appear obscure yet somehow familiar to our eyes.""because Arjuna, like every Hindu epic character, has something like a thousand names, one of which, apparently, is Kounteya."PS: kaunteya (कौन्तेय) = of kunti (कुन्ति) = arjuna (अर्जुन) (her son)!!

"Therefore, I’d push ahead with my Sanskrit by contacting the American Sanskrit Institute. They’d sent me the folder of death. And then I’d vocalize compound consonants from ancient Vedic texts until my eyes bled."PS: why do people jump straight to vedas when they think of sanskrit, i could never comprehend. let me climb the everest, after all i can stand now :) :)

Girl forced to take Sanskrit moves Delhi High CourtPS: interestingly, this led to the best side discussion on sweet and sour on Facebook.question: and what with svAdu (which is etymologically related to the European words meaning "sweet")? and ShADava?answer: @noc, wonderful question. this itself is worth a post in itself, tracing the origins of the words.

in many places, the Sha (ष) is pronounced as kha (ख) , and the kha (ख) is written as Sha (ष). examples:
pAkhaNDa (पाखण्ड) = hypocrisy is written as pAShaNDa (पाषण्ड) also, but pronounced only as pAkhaNDa (पाखण्ड)
the constellation puShya (पुष्य) is pronounced both as puShya (पुष्य) and pukhya (पुख्य)

H'wood get inked in Sanskrit!"but his misspelt ‘Vhictoria’ tattoo in Sanskrit came under much criticism" PS: the surprising thing is who is doing the transliteration for them? so many errors! wonder how victoria becomes vhictoria with the extra h!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

The cheetah was native to India and made extinct due to excessive hunting. Now the Indian government maybe planning to bring it back to India, for no other grand motive than to increase the tourism. Interestingly, it is not able to keep its tiger population safe, wonder what will be achieved in increased revenue by bringing the cheetah.

It would be good if the wonderful cat can return and remain safe, yet another habitat for it.

Other similar words are
- vichitra (विचित्र) i.e. visheSha chira, specially varied, i.e. weird, strange.
- chalachitra (चलचित्र) - a newly coined word, meaning motion picture, i.e. movies. This has been accepted now in Indian languages for the word, movie, but 'film' is most common.
- chitra-paTa (चित्रपट) the screen, surface (paTa) for showing the chitra. earlier it meant a wall or canvas, today in modern Indian languages it means movie screen. There are even programs on radio and TV called 'chitra-paTa sa~Ngeeta' (movie songs)
- chitra-greeva (चित्रग्रीव) the "spotted neck", name of the pigeon king in the first story of Hitopadesh (pigeons fly away with the net)

फेनिल = soap. That which foams.
बुद्बुद = bubble. This is an onomatopoeia word, based on the sound bubbles make.

The बुद्बुद is used as a metaphor for this world.

The scales that Indians have thought (and used) in numbers and time, is staggering. rAmAyaNa (रामायण) has mention of numbers upto 10^60 [yuddha kANDa, 28:33-38], that is 1 followed by 60 zeros, which is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to be precise. This was in connection with the size of rAma's army. Of course the number is not exact and surely an exaggeration, but the main point is that vAlmIki (वाल्मीकि) explains the NAMES of the place values in the number system upto 10^60.

Thinking upon this, makes you wonder that without this simple concept of place value and zero, not much science would have progressed. No calculus for sure, and no going to the moon. How do you do logarithms in Roman again? There is not enough praise for this simple but far reaching counting system.

The same was true for time scale. From a fraction of a second (nimiSha निमिष) all the way to mahAyuga (महायुग) (4,320,000 years), the scale went full range [bhAgavat-purANa].

The age of creation itself is mentioned indirectly. The Tower of Hanoi problem is originally an Indian problem. It has 64 disks of varying sizes, that need to be moved from one peg to another following certain rules. It is said that a priest sits in the temple of brahmA (ब्रह्मा), making the moves without error, and when he is done, the creation will restart. So much for 2012! Mathematically it will take 2^64 moves. If one correct move is made every second, even then the time taken comes to 585 billion years. Now that is an order of time not thought of anywhere else! Trademark Indian thought.

Except modern astronomy, which feels not only comfortable with such large numbers but would not exist in lack of them! That is why a light-year is not a measure of time, but of distance, the distance light would travel in a year (6 trillion miles, 10^16 meters). And then there is the radius of the observable universe at 46.5 x 10^9 light years = 46.5 x 10^22 kilometers = 465,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilometers!

To just go crazy thinking more such 'fictional' numbers, :) :) which make no sense to anyone but astronomers and those who believe in them, check out Light Year. And then, when you are all excited, read some of the purANas, they will appear more believable, even if unfathomable! LOL!

Seeing all this, our human life is what - a bubble on the surface of a fast flowing stream? That won't even be noticeable cosmically. Now, this doesn't mean one needs to go in depression :) but just that 'This too shall pass' - so have neither gloom nor pride.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

What you see in the front is a wooden devanAgarI (देवनागरी) alphabet board. I had seen these ones for English in US, but it hadn't picked up in India for Indian languages. Now I found this, and my 3.5 year old has been playing with them and picking up.... he already reads most of the letters and picking up mAtrA (मात्रा).

These boards are a good thing, something which was not available to a generation or before earlier. They help make the letters come alive, something you can hold and feel. Giving it a whole new dimension to reading!

Anyone who wants to learn a new script, and has the kid in them, should try such board toys.

Of course, having a few smiley cars and building blocks and an ambulance will break the monotony too!

Monday, August 2, 2010

The word for color in Sanskrit is 'varNa' (वर्ण) and it actually signifies quality, one of them being color. It is also used for the letter of the alphabet (quality of sound), the alphabet being called varNa-mAlA (वर्ण-माला, letter-garland). Gold is called su-varNa (सुवर्ण, सु=good, beautiful; वर्ण=color, quality ). The four personality types are called वर्ण as well - ब्राह्मण, क्षत्रिय, वैश्य, शूद्र (brAhmaNa, kShatrIya, vaishya, shUdra) which are the thinkers, administrators, business and working class of a society by professions, but they are based originally on personality types, qualities of a person.

There is very nice example of pun and the many meanings of सुवर्ण in Hindi:

So the saying goes, all of them are looking for सुवर्ण - the poet (looking for good letters/words/sounds), the wanton man (for the fairer complexion, women) and the thief (for gold).

Here are names of some of the colors as in Sanskrit. These are in masculine form. Most feminine are made by changing the last -aH to -aa, and neutral by changing it to -am like, श्वेत, श्वेता, श्वेतम् (shvetaH, shvetA, shvetam) or रक्तः, रक्ता, रक्तम् (raktaH, raktA, raktam).

श्वेतः

shvetaH

white

धवलः

dhavalaH

white

अर्जुनः

arjunaH

white

कृष्णः

kRiShNa

black

श्यामः

shyAmaH

black

रक्तः

raktaH

red

पीतः

pItaH

yellow

हरितः

haritaH

green

नीलः

nIlaH/neelaH

indigo

पाटलः

pATalaH

pink

शोणः

shoNaH

purple

कपिलः

kapilaH

brown

अरुणः

aruNaH

reddish brown

कषायः

kaShAyaH

yellowish red

कापोत

kApotaH

dull white grey

And the rainbow is called 'इन्द्र-धनुष' (indra-dhanuSha) or the bow of 'indra' - the king of the gods.